Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Against Coherence', 'Specimen inventorum' and 'Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason'

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11 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / a. Coherence as justification
21515 Incoherence may be more important for enquiry than coherence [Olsson]
     Full Idea: While coherence may lack the positive role many have assigned to it, ...incoherence plays an important negative role in our enquiries.
     From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 10.1)
     A reaction: [He cites Peirce as the main source for this idea] We can hardly by deeply impressed by incoherence if we have no sense of coherence. Incoherence is just one of many markers for theory failure. Missing the target, bad concepts...
21514 Coherence is the capacity to answer objections [Olsson]
     Full Idea: According to Lehrer, coherence should be understood in terms of the capacity to answer objections.
     From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 9)
     A reaction: [Keith Lehrer 1990] We can connect this with the Greek requirement of being able to give an account [logos], which is the hallmark of understanding. I take coherence to be the best method of achieving understanding. Any understanding meets Lehrer's test.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / c. Coherentism critique
21496 Mere agreement of testimonies is not enough to make truth very likely [Olsson]
     Full Idea: Far from guaranteeing a high likelihood of truth by itself, testimonial agreement can apparently do so only if the circumstances are favourable as regards independence, prior probability, and individual credibility.
     From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 1)
     A reaction: This is Olson's main thesis. His targets are C.I.Lewis and Bonjour, who hoped that a mere consensus of evidence would increase verisimilitude. I don't see a problem for coherence in general, since his favourable circumstances are part of it.
21499 Coherence is only needed if the information sources are not fully reliable [Olsson]
     Full Idea: An enquirer who is fortunate enough to have at his or her disposal fully reliable information sources has no use for coherence, the need for which arises only in the context of less than fully reliable informations sources.
     From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 2.6.2)
     A reaction: I take this to be entirely false. How do you assess reliability? 'I've seen it with my own eyes'. Why trust your eyes? In what visibility conditions do you begin to doubt your eyes? Why do rational people mistrust their intuitions?
21502 A purely coherent theory cannot be true of the world without some contact with the world [Olsson]
     Full Idea: The Input Objection says a pure coherence theory would seem to allow that a system of beliefs be justified in spite of being utterly out of contact with the world it purports to describe, so long as it is, to a sufficient extent, coherent.
     From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 4.1)
     A reaction: Olson seems impressed by this objection, but I don't see how a system could be coherently about the world if it had no known contact with the world. Olson seems to ignore meta-coherence, which evaluates the status of the system being studied.
21512 Extending a system makes it less probable, so extending coherence can't make it more probable [Olsson]
     Full Idea: Any non-trivial extension of a belief system is less probable than the original system, but there are extensions that are more coherent than the original system. Hence more coherence does not imply a higher probability.
     From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 6.4)
     A reaction: [Olson cites Klein and Warfield 1994; compressed] The example rightly says the extension could have high internal coherence, but not whether the extension is coherent with the system being extended.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
12729 The cause of a change is not the real influence, but whatever gives a reason for the change [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: That thing from whose state a reason for the changes is most readily provided is adjudged to be the cause. ...Causes are not derived from a real influence, but from the providing of a reason.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Specimen inventorum [1689], A6.4.1620), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 5
     A reaction: Leibniz is not denying that there are real influences. He seems to be offering the thesis which I am pursuing, that the need for explanation is the crucial factor in shaping the structure of our metaphysics.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions
20034 Intentions must be mutually consistent, affirm appropriate means, and fit the agent's beliefs [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Bratman's three main norms of intention are 'internal consistency' (between a person's intentions), 'means-end coherence' (the means must fit the end), and 'consistency with the agent's beliefs' (especially intending to do and believing you won't do).
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: These are controversial, but have set the agenda for modern non-reductive discussions of intention.
20033 Intentions are normative, requiring commitment and further plans [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Intentions involve normative commitments. We settle on intended courses, if there is no reason to reconsider them, and intentions put pressure on us to form further intentions in order to more efficiently coordinate our actions.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: [a compression of their summary] This distinguishes them from beliefs and desires, which contain no such normative requirements, even though they may point that way.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / b. Types of intention
20026 Intention is either the aim of an action, or a long-term constraint on what we can do [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: We need to distinguish intention as an aim or goal of actions, and intentions as a distinctive state of commitment to future action, a state that results from and subsequently constrains our practical endeavours as planning agents.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 2
     A reaction: I'm not sure how distinct these are, given the obvious possibility of intermediate stages, and the embracing of any available short-cut. If I could mow my lawn with one blink, I'd do it.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / c. Reducing intentions
20032 Bratman rejected reducing intentions to belief-desire, because they motivate, and have their own standards [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Bratman motivated the idea that intentions are psychologically real and not reducible to desire-belief complexes by observing that they are motivationally distinctive, and subject to their own unique standards of rational appraisal.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: If I thought my belief was a bit warped, and my desire morally corrupt, my higher self might refuse to form an intention. If so, then Bratman is onto something. But maybe my higher self has its own beliefs and desires.